The great thing about sports can also be what makes it tough. For neutral fans, or ones that are in favor of teams that play close to and into April, a great time of the year is closing quickly. But for every winner, there's a loser. Some times the outcome is predictable but other times it is everything but. Tonight, at the little gym in North Moorhead, came a surprising outcome - at least on the surface. In looking back, Lake Park - Audubon handed Park Christian one of their five losses, by double-digits no less, a little over two weeks ago at the same gym and in the earlier meeting this season it was a two point win for the Falcons. So schematically and with their personelle it seems like the Raiders were able to figure out how to counter the Falcons approach to the game.
It started this time with a 10 - 3 run by LP-A, with scores coming in-between questionable ball-handling which persisted well into the second half. Park got the deficit down to four points not long after only to have it increase to 10 on an 8 - 2 run. Before they could leave the court and look to regroup the difference hit 17 and finished at 13, 39 - 26.
18 minutes could have been more than enough to make up that difference and Park's opening seemed even more apparent when the Raiders starting center Etta Miosek had to sit with four fouls and most of the half left. It worked, briefly, as Eden Tofibam went on her own 6 point surge to trim it back to 11 but Beth Schauer immediately followed that with an old-fashioned three to get the snowball rolling again. Shortly there after came the play to encapsulate the game. Following a missed free-throw, LP-A got the rebound and scored a layup. A simple play but so many of them went the way of the Raiders. And it didn't help that there was a distinct disparity in the fouls being called. Some of it was due to Park having to play more aggressively in come-back mode but they were called for 10 before a fourth was called against Lake Park. I try not to put blame on officials because they get it enough but it was hard to ignore. Anyway, like I said, it all snow-balled the way of the visitors until time ran out.
Final Score
Lake Park - Audobon 70, Park Christian 49
Tofibam led the way for the Falcons with 19 and Karley Motschenbacher added 12. Kay Pederson paced the scoring for the Raiders with 20 with double-figures by Izzy Olson & Miosek.
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